Phil Chetwynd reviews The Racket by Matt Kennard (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2024.)
Matt Kennard knows the Empire. He worked in it for several years, and knows every twist and turn it takes in disguising its very presence. He knows how it tears countries apart and makes sure that its own people are deceived into thinking it is somehow good for them. He has studied the many ways in which the Empire seeks to subvert democratic initiatives in developing countries if it means that big capital will not flourish in these countries.
The great value of this book is that it lays bare the mysteries of the world economic system that are often just beyond the reach of many of us. ‘The Racket’ is a system of economics that has been rigged by the US since the end of the Second World war and the Bretton Woods agreement. It is a system that ensures that the US maintains its grip on the world economy in a way that seems ‘natural’, ‘the way things are’ – the quintessence of mystification in the Marxist sense.
Kennard used to work in the heart of the beast, as a journalist at the Financial Times where he learnt his craft. He also realised that he had little chance of progressing if he wanted to tell a different story. When he went on to study journalism at Columbia University, he learnt the same lesson, that by penetrating the racket and telling the truth, he would not prevail.
It is so refreshing to read an account of the stitch-up we call capitalism by someone who speaks with such inside knowledge and clarity. He takes us to those parts of the world where the Racket would not want us to go. To the favelas of South America, for example, where the poor are kept poor by a combination of corrupt ‘leaders’ and US big money, both of which contrive to rig the system in their own favour.
Take Haiti, for example. Crippled by an earthquake in 2010, the capital Port-au-Prince is a tale of two cities. Lavish multinational companies sit side by side with miserable slums. Guess who stepped in to ‘save’ the country after the earthquake. It was of course the prophets of the neo-liberal ‘transformation’. “The Inter-American Development Bank got education and water, the World Bank bagged energy, while the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)… [took] the planned new industrial parks”. The ‘saviours’ of the Haitian economy nevertheless faced a Haitian parliament populated by a large number of nationalists wary of attempts to erode their national assets. There was a regular push and shove of multinationals peddling the free enterprise mythology, and local politicians struggling to salvage what remained of a national infrastructure. Finally the Racket got its way. This dynamic reproduced itself worldwide, with many countries in the global south becoming caught up in US attempts to ‘fix’ their economies to the benefit of the Empire.
And so the racketeers won the day, opening the door to more free enterprise con jobs. The cost to the working classes in both the ‘donor’ and ‘recipient’ countries was invariably immense. Kennard had a first-hand view of the process when working in the FT office in Washington DC. A free-trade agreement was being debated in Congress giving the US preferential trade terms with Columbia. He notes how ‘free trade’ in this context meant jobs leaving the richer nation and going to a country where workers are paid a pittance. At the same time, goods from the richer country flood the poorer, thereby pushing out indigenous production. A perfect symmetry for the rich; increasing impoverishment for the poor.
The Racket is not shy of killing off its opponents where necessary. It just makes sure that it covers its traces by branding these killings as the result of local gang warfare —‘it’s nothing to do with us, Guv.’ The contempt shown towards the UN by the Racket in the past gives full licence to states like Israel to run roughshod over any attempts to curtail its illegal, genocidal actions. The UN is amply demonstrated to be an instrument of the Empire. The US has by far the highest veto rate in the UN since the 1960s, frequently blocking resolutions requiring states to observe international law.
Kennard does not deal solely in abstract economic concepts. He gets up close and personal in many of his examples, not least in describing his time amongst international volunteers fighting to resist Israel’s attempts to force Palestinians out of their homes. He lived in East Jerusalem with a family threatened with eviction. Thirty meters down the road was Tony Blair’s residence when he was in town as the Racket’s ‘Peace Envoy’. Kennard contacted Blair’s spokesperson, who, predictably, had nothing to say. Likewise the British Embassy simply refused to say what the British government was actually doing to stop the blatantly illegal and immoral destruction of Palestinian homes happening right under its nose.
The Racket is as clear an exposition of the workings of international capitalism as you will find today. Kennard takes us to places that may not be on our immediate radar: Turkey, Haiti, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic. One very minor criticism is that the book would have been enhanced by a few maps. Although this very much speaks to my ignorance of the region, the fact that Haiti and the Dominican Republic are part of the same Caribbean island was new to me, and it is vital to understanding the operation of the Racket in these two states. But this is a minor point. Kennard has provided us with a book of comprehensive scale that should be vital reading for socialists throughout Scotland as well as the rest of the world.
Phil Chetwynd is an erstwhile clinical psychologist who took up photography when he retired some 25 years ago. He is a member of the Network of Photographers for Palestine.